I took the journal out from my dresser drawer and grabbed a pen out of my backpack. Then I plopped down on my bed and jotted down all the thoughts that I needed to get out. I must have fallen asleep with the journal in my hands, however, because when I woke up to the sound of something clattering at my window my fingers were still wrapped around the journal and the pen had leaked ink all over my jeans.

Then, I heard that sound again.

The sound of something clattering against the glass of my windowpane.

I peeked out the window to see what had been knocking against it, but all I saw was the big tree outside my dorm building swaying in the gusty breeze.

“Damn it,” I said out loud as I looked down at the giant ink spill on my pants. “These were my favorite jeans.”

I slid my jeans off and let them fall to my ankles before kicking them toward the corner of the room. I was getting ready to put pajama pants on and change my academy T-shirt, but the sound of someone in my room made me scream and fall backward onto my dresser. A hand grabbed me just before I knocked my head against the dresser corner, and when I looked up, I saw Adam holding onto the side of my arm.

“Easy,” he said as he helped me to my feet.

“What are you doing here?!” I screamed at him. “Get the hell out of my room!”

I grabbed the lamp off my dresser and pulled the cord from the wall, leaving only the light of the moon illuminating the room. I had no problem smashing his skull with the lamp if he tried to do anything to me.

“Lisette,” he said with a look of apology on his face. “Calm down, please. I’m not here to hurt you or freak you out or anything. I’m sorry I scared you.”

I lowered the lamp a little but still held tightly onto it, just in case.

“Then what in the hell are you doing here?” I asked. “And why did you come through my window?”

I wondered how he even got up there using only the single tree outside that didn’t have that many low-hanging branches.

“Well, I couldn’t exactly walk through the front door,” he said.

He was right. He was a Lineage student now, and he would get into serious trouble for being there at all. “Ands for why I’m here, I want to help you.”

I lowered the lamp and went to go sit on my bed. “I’m listening.”

He sighed. “I know who killed your mother.”

I felt as if the entire world slowly spun to a halt when I heard those words.

My mother was murdered, and this was the first and only other person in the world that knew it too.

“You—you do?” I asked.

Julian had always believed that I thought my mother was killed, and because I believed it, he supported me. But I had never actually been sure if he believed it to be true too. Lately, it seemed more like he bought into the idea that her suicide was a set-up, but he’d never actually said it out loud. Adam, on the other hand, just stood before me and said the words.

He nodded. “Yes. Your mother was murdered, and I know who did it.”

I didn’t know what to say because I had a million things that I felt like I needed to say all at once. I was so flooded by anger mixed with relief and sorrow that I couldn’t do anything during that moment, aside from breathing and trying not to cry. Adam came over to the bed and sat down next to me. He looked much more like I had remembered him: black, ripped jeans and a black T-shirt that had such a deep V-neck that it showed the tip of a tattoo on his chest.

This was how I remembered him looking at the halfway house, without the Lineage jacket.

“I’m sorry, Lisette. I’m sorry that I didn’t come tell you this sooner, and I’m sorry that your mother is dead,” he said as he placed his palm onto my bare thigh.

I looked up at him through blurry eyes and tried to talk without my voice cracking.

“Did you have anything to do with her death?” I asked.

I was still able to reach that lamp and bash his skull in if he said yes. But instead, he shook his head vigorously.

“No. I swear to you that I had nothing to do with it. I was just there that night at the halfway house, nothing more.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Then how do you know who killed her? Who did it?”

“I know because the person who did it told me.”

My jaw dropped open. “Tell me who killed my mother.”

“Lisette, you need to stop trying to figure it out. You have to stop poking around in this. There are powerful people at play here. Ones that won’t hesitate to kill you too before they risk exposing themselves.”

Adam was being honest; I could see it in his eyes. He looked genuinely afraid for me and shook up. And it shook me up.

Enough to stand up with my fists clenched and yell. “If you want to help me, then you need to tell me who murdered my mother!”

“Be quiet, please!” he said. “You’re going to wake everyone in the dorms, and they’ll find me here.”

“I don’t care!” I shrieked as I stood up and faced him. “Tell me!”

Adam got to his feet and grabbed me by the waist, spinning me until my back was against him and his hand was clasped over my mouth. I tried to scream some more, but his hand was muffling the sound coming out of my mouth.

“Lisette, please,” he said softly against my ear. “Nothing you do now is going to bring your mother back. I’m trying to protect you.”

I stopped struggling against him and became quiet. He was stronger than me and fighting him in that position wasn’t going to do me any good. Once he saw that I had calmed down, he took his hand away from my mouth, but he still held his arm around my waist. I turned my head to the side until I felt his breath against my cheek.

“You know,” I said quietly. “There seems to be a few people lately that want to protect me. But all I really want is to find my mother’s killer. I know it has something to do with Lineage, and I intend to find out who and what it is. I am going to dismantle whatever cover-up is going on in that school from the inside-out, and you can either tell me what you know or get the hell out of my room."

Something strange happened then, as we stood there together. I felt Adam’s chest rise and fall against my back, and his hand clench around the front of my waist, bringing my shirt up into a wadded bunch of fabric that rose just above my thighs. His half-opened mouth dragged against my cheekbone, and for a moment, I didn’t think about anything besides the feeling of heat coming off his body.

And wrapping around me like a weighted blanket.

“I can’t tell you that now,” he whispered. “I want to, but I can’t. You just have to trust me.”

I slowly turned my body around in his arm until I was facing him with no space between us. “Then get the hell away from me,” I hissed.

Adam didn’t want to let go. He lingered there without taking his hand away that now sat in the small of my back. And to be honest, I wasn’t sure that I wanted him to let go either. I was overwhelmed with too many emotions that were all vying for control over my attention. But when he did let go, he took a step back and looked more hurt than angry. He walked back over to the window and threw one leg over the ledge as he got ready to reach for the tree branch.

Then, he looked back at me.

“Just don’t do anything stupid,” he said before he dropped down and out of sight.

I huffed to myself as I closed and locked the window. “Everything I’ve done since mom’s death has been stupid.”

All of this is stupid.